Friday, December 27, 2013

With the birth of Chris and Vineeta's baby being imminent, I have been thinking about the baby quilts I've made in the last several months. I really enjoy making quilts for the little ones. I can be creative on a little bit smaller scale than a regular quilt.

I made this quilt for a colleague at work who had a baby during the summer.

I started by using by Accucut machine to cut "tumblers" out of a bunch of fat quarters from a Connecting Threads collection called Laundry Basket. It had lots of bright, but fairly neutral color, since I didn't know if the baby was going to be a boy or a girl. After arranging rows of tumblers on my design wall to distribute the colors, I sewed them all together, added borders, quilted and put on the binding.

I thought it would be fun to pick up on some of the little birds that were on the fabric and add a few as applique on the quilt top. I added three little birds, sitting on branches, scattered on the quilt top.

Thursday, December 26, 2013

This lap quilt was my Christmas gift to Jim this year. It's the first quilt I've made for him. He frequently complains that he's cold this winter, so I thought that a quilt to cuddle under while he reads or watches TV would be just the thing. I got this kit on the Illinois-Wisconsin bus exchange tour that I enjoyed with Lee at the beginning of November.

The four square farmhouse blocks were fun to do. The cutting was easy, and they went together quickly. I love the batik fabrics. There are lots of subtle color combinations in each fabric so it is easy to make the fabric combinations for the various blocks.

Chris and Vineeta are expecting the arrival of their second son any day now, so I took the opportunity to deliver the baby's quilt during our Christmas Eve celebration yesterday.

Chris enjoys sailing on Lake Michigan in the summers, so when I saw the kit for this quilt at the Madison Quilt Expo, I thought that it would be perfect for his son. I love the various blues of the Kaffe Fassett fabrics and the large blue ric rac making a wave under the boats. The sailboats are appliqued. I quilted it using a design called "Puffy Clouds."

Thursday, December 19, 2013

I have been making more quilts that ever this year, having the availability of my Statler Stitcher to help with the quilting. I decided that my blog is the best way to track my projects. The projects created this year will be in no particular order--I'll post about them randomly until I catch up. My goal is to share my joy in each creation.

Today's subject is the quilt I made for Nash, that will be his Christmas gift from me this year.

Nash LOVES trucks, cars, all kinds of vehicles. He reminds me so much of his daddy, in that way as well as in many others. One of Chris' favorite books when he was little was Cars and Trucks and Things That Go, by Richard Scary. We spent many hours together reading it and looking for "Gold bug" on each page.

When I as at the Hancock Fabric in Paducah, KY just a few days after Nash was born in 2012, I saw a kit for a child's quilt, made with fabric that had prints of the Richard Scary characters and Busy Town. I knew it would be perfect for Nash when he was a little older.For this quilt, I followed the pattern that came with the kit to make the top. I was a little concerned about the sashing triangles, but found that they were not difficult to construct and went quickly because the pieces were large. It went together in just a few days.

I didn't have backing fabric, so when the top was completed I drove out to Quilters Destination to look for an appropriate fabric, and found the perfect thing--construction vehicles in the same color group as the fabrics for the top! After quilting and sewing on the binding, the finishing touch was a label that I printed on fabric and sewed on the back.